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Last night, I was watching "how the states got their shapes," and they mentioned that Florida has the country's largest cattle ranch. I also found out that "cracker" comes from the cracking of the whips used to herd the cattle by the "cow hunters."

Last night, I was watching "how the states got their shapes," and they mentioned that Florida has the country's largest cattle ranch. I also found out that "cracker" comes from the cracking of the whips used to herd the cattle by the "cow hunters."

Georgia crackers c.1873
Cracker, sometimes white cracker or cracka, is a pejorative expression word for white people,[1] especially poor rural whites in the Southern United States. In reference to a native of Florida or Georgia, however, it can be used in a more neutral context and is sometimes used self-descriptively with pride.[2]

There are multiple theories of the etymology of "cracker", most dating its origin to the 18th century or earlier.

One theory holds that slaver foremen in the antebellum South used bullwhips to discipline African slaves, with such use of the whip being described as 'cracking the whip'. The white foremen who cracked these whips thus became known as "crackers".[3][4][5][6]

They are called by the town's-people, "Crackers," from the frequency with which they crack their large whips, as if they derived a peculiar pleasure from the sound"[7]

Another theory is based on Florida's "cracker cowboys" of the 19th and early 20th centuries; distinct from the Spanish vaquero and the Western cowboy. Cracker cowboys did not use lassos to herd or capture cattle. Their primary tools were cow whips and dogs.[8][citation needed]

Another theory traces this term from Middle English word "cnac" or "craic" which also originally meant the sound of a cracking whip, but came to refer to any loud noise. In Elizabethan times this could refer to "entertaining conversation" (one may be said to "crack" a joke) and could be used to describe loud braggarts; this term and the Gaelic spelling craic are still in use in Ireland, Scotland and Northern England. It is documented in Shakespeare's King John (1595): "What cracker is this same that deafs our ears with this abundance of superfluous breath?"[9][10]

Yet another theory holds that the term comes from the common diet of poor whites. The 1911 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica supposes that the term derives from the cracked corn from which formed their staple food of this class of people.[11]

Georgia crackers c.1873
Cracker, sometimes white cracker or cracka, is a pejorative expression word for white people,[1] especially poor rural whites in the Southern United States. In reference to a native of Florida or Georgia, however, it can be used in a more neutral context and is sometimes used self-descriptively with pride.[2]

There are multiple theories of the etymology of "cracker", most dating its origin to the 18th century or earlier.

One theory holds that slaver foremen in the antebellum South used bullwhips to discipline African slaves, with such use of the whip being described as 'cracking the whip'. The white foremen who cracked these whips thus became known as "crackers".[3][4][5][6]

They are called by the town's-people, "Crackers," from the frequency with which they crack their large whips, as if they derived a peculiar pleasure from the sound"[7]

Another theory is based on Florida's "cracker cowboys" of the 19th and early 20th centuries; distinct from the Spanish vaquero and the Western cowboy. Cracker cowboys did not use lassos to herd or capture cattle. Their primary tools were cow whips and dogs.[8][citation needed]

Another theory traces this term from Middle English word "cnac" or "craic" which also originally meant the sound of a cracking whip, but came to refer to any loud noise. In Elizabethan times this could refer to "entertaining conversation" (one may be said to "crack" a joke) and could be used to describe loud braggarts; this term and the Gaelic spelling craic are still in use in Ireland, Scotland and Northern England. It is documented in Shakespeare's King John (1595): "What cracker is this same that deafs our ears with this abundance of superfluous breath?"[9][10]

Yet another theory holds that the term comes from the common diet of poor whites. The 1911 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica supposes that the term derives from the cracked corn from which formed their staple food of this class of people.[11]